Why Do People Believe in UFOs? | SETI & Aliens

I’m bemused that we are smart enough to land an automobile size payload on another planet, but still live in a culture where a significant percentage of people want to believe in implausible if not impossible things. The reality is that intelligence has nothing to do with believing in “weird things.”

A recent National Geographic Society poll reported that 36 percent of Americans — about 80 million people — believe UFOs exist, only 17 percent do not, and the rest of the people are undecided. The survey did not specifically equate UFOs with flying saucers or little green men, however.

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It’s Fun to Believe in Weird Things

Contrary to conventional wisdom, people of all levels of education like to believe in “weird things,” says Michael Shermer of the Skeptical Inquirer. Shermer wrote that people tend to seek or interpret evidence favorable to existing beliefs and ignore or misinterpret evidence unfavorable to those beliefs.